He stared at Ginger’s photo. Though undeniably beautiful, she looked too thin and tired, appearing surprised that someone cared enough to take her picture. Shaking off a frisson of unease, Derek returned to the search screen and typed in “Peet, Valerie, Nashville.”
Her rap sheet took up the entire screen, including reckless endangerment of minors, crystal meth and prescription drug possession, public intoxication, prostitution, and a handful of DUIs. He could spend all day combing through the charges, but he was mostly interested in the first.
Derek clicked the first reckless endangerment file, dating back to 1999. As he read the description of Valerie’s criminal charges, he grew more incensed with each detail. A ten-year-old Ginger had been brought into a Nashville police department for attempting to shoplift food to feed four-year-old Willa. She told the officer their mother hadn’t been home since Christmas, two weeks prior.
Based on her latest charges, dated as recently as four months ago, Valerie hadn’t changed since leaving her two young children to starve all those years ago. Ginger had been seeing to Willa’s welfare for quite some time, it seemed. How they’d avoided being taken into state’s custody, Derek couldn’t fathom.
Something about the missing person’s report niggled at his detective’s brain. Why would Valerie Peet, a woman who obviously had very little use for her children, even bother making the effort to report them missing? Furthermore, after years of neglect, what would prompt Ginger to take Willa and leave Nashville only a couple of months before Willa graduated high school?
Derek had no way of finding out. Thanks to his massive hangover and annoyance over finding himself lusting after a woman on his way to a funeral, he’d made a less-than-stellar first impression. He very well couldn’t knock on her door and pry into her personal business when it shouldn’t be his concern in the first place.
The part that scared the hell out of him?
He wanted to make it his concern.
Chapter Five
Ginger used her trusty pink scissors to cut out the headline Is Your Vagina Angry? from a newly purchased women’s magazine, spread glue on the back, and pasted it over the picture of a nun looking thoughtful. She had a sick sense of humor. So sue her.
She stepped back and admired the decoupage nightstand she’d been working on all day. Get Thee to a Nunnery, she’d named this particular one. After a few finishing touches, it would be ready for a coat of lacquer.
Ginger smiled. Her hobby of decorating various pieces of furniture with interesting photographs and magazine cutouts might have started as a way to occupy her mind when living in Nashville, but somewhere along the line, she’d started doing it for fun. Since she purchased most of the furniture at donation centers, the expense was minimal, and creating something one-of-a-kind brought her a sense of accomplishment. Occasionally, she’d even sold pieces to students or visiting artists she met at Bobby’s Hideaway, although such a thing proved a rarity since the clientele didn’t have much interest in discussing furniture. Any money she’d made went into a college account for Willa. In a bank where Valerie couldn’t touch it.
She sighed into her half-empty wineglass, knowing her free time would be limited from here on out. While Willa attended her first day at the new high school, Ginger went out and found a job bartending at Sensation, a nightclub in the River North section of downtown Chicago.
Old habits die hard, she supposed. Bartending felt like a step backward after the progress she’d made leaving Nashville behind last week, but money came easy behind the bar. And if she knew how to accomplish one thing, it was getting people good and trashed. With the money she’d “borrowed,” Ginger probably didn’t need to work for quite a while, but apart from using some of the cash as their security deposit on the apartment, she didn’t plan to touch it unless absolutely necessary.
Ginger glided into the kitchen, taking a moment to appreciate the marble countertops and stainless steel appliances. She couldn’t get over living with such luxuries. Just last week she’d been reheating three-day-old leftovers over an ancient gas stove. Today, Willa would sit down to homemade pasta sauce and ravioli. The ravioli itself was store-bought, but hey, she’d never claimed to be a chef.
A door slammed out in the hallway and Ginger smirked, assuming the lieutenant must be home from work for the night. Not once had she thought about him since their exchange the other day. Unless you count that one time. And the fourteen other times he’d popped into her head, damn him.
Maybe Chicago boys just liked something a little different in a woman.